Ed Feulner — A Conservative Hero Passes

His leadership of the Heritage Foundation helped change the world.

While it went largely unnoticed over the weekend amid the non-stop frenzy of the Trump presidency, one of the chief architects of the 1980s Ronald Reagan revolution quietly passed on at the age of 83. While he was not widely known outside the beltway, Edwin J. Feulner was acknowledged by friend and foe alike as a giant, a powerful and pivotal force in shaping the agenda of the 40th president and later the George H.W. Bush, the George W. Bush, and Donald Trump presidencies.

When Reagan was first elected in 1980, he was, like Donald Trump in 2016, unfamiliar with the ways of Washington. Coming from California, he needed an anchor, an organization, and a leader he could trust in the liberal-dominated culture of the nation’s capital. Knowing policy does not write or enact itself, Reagan turned to a think tank co-founded a few years earlier by Feulner, which had not yet made an indelible mark on policy debates. That would come later, as the Heritage Foundation evolved into one of the largest and most influential policy institutes in the world. It stands today as the conservative antidote to conventional liberal ideology advanced by think tanks such as the Brookings Institution.

As Reagan prepared to assume office, Heritage published “Mandate for Leadership,” a report with policy recommendations written by several authors who joined the administration. The foundation also played a central role in developing the Reagan Doctrine, a foreign policy focused on supporting anti-communist movements across the world, eventually leading to the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

That document was similar to the one Heritage assembled in 2024 for a prospective Trump second term, known as Project 2025. But unlike the report designed for Reagan after he was elected, Heritage chose to release it well before the election. Knowing how influential the foundation had been with Reagan and a trio of Republican successors, leftists attempted to scandalize Trump by tying him to the report’s most controversial recommendations. They failed.

Feulner, a Towering Figure on the Right

Under Feulner’s leadership through four decades, Heritage became, in the words of former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, “the Parthenon of the conservative metropolis.” The New York Times referred to him as “The George Washington of The Heritage Foundation.” Reagan himself called Heritage a “vital force.”

A critical factor in Feulner’s vision was accessibility. He turned Heritage away from voluminous, scholarly studies typically favored by think tanks, many or most of which did little more than collect dust in the ivory tower. Instead, Feulner pivoted in an entirely different direction, compiling and marketing concise, punchy policy studies designed for the average citizen to understand and actively support. Popularizing and successfully promoting complicated policies became the trademark of the Heritage Foundation under his leadership. A prime example of Feulner’s achievements is Heritage’s annual Index of Economic Freedom, a joint project with The Wall Street Journal. It has become the virtual benchmark for measuring individual country’s policies regarding rule of law, limited government, regulatory efficiency, and open markets.

All in all, what may have most distinguished Feulner was his skill as both a fundraiser and a policy wonk. Ordinarily, prominent Washington figures excel at one or the other but rarely both. Serving as president of the organization from 1977 until his retirement in 2018, he built the Heritage Foundation into a titanic organization with an annual budget of more than $100 million while simultaneously demonstrating a keen intellect equal to or exceeding that of the many policy experts spread throughout Washington.

Abby S. Moffat—CEO of the Diana Davis Spencer Foundation, chairman of One Generation Away (parent company of Liberty Nation News), and long-time Heritage Foundation board member — lavished praise on her fallen colleague:

“Ed was a principled and visionary leader whose influence on the modern conservative movement is immeasurable. Americans, and lovers of freedom around the world, owe him a profound debt of gratitude. His courage, intellect, and tireless devotion to the Constitution and our nation’s founding principles left an indelible mark on generations of policymakers and citizens. Yet, Ed never carried the weight of this mission with heaviness; he brought an eternal optimism, rooted in his faith in America and its people, that our best days lie ahead.”

John F. Kennedy declared after his Bay of Pigs fiasco that success has many fathers while failure is an orphan. The list of those who claimed credit for helping enable Reagan’s triumphs is as lengthy as the one listing those who washed their hands of Joe Biden. But Edwin J. Feulner was the genuine article, a hero of the conservative movement, a man about whom those on the right might echo those famous words in the Bible, “well done, good and faithful servant.”